


further out than you thought

by walksbyherself



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Nemeton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walksbyherself/pseuds/walksbyherself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles dreams of the white room and the nemeton.  Peter dreams of being alpha again.</p><p>The roads to power take us to strange places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	further out than you thought

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fic immediately after the 3a finale. It is in no way compliant with 3b.

Stiles dreams about the ice bath, about slipping beneath the water and feeling first cold like a knife, then nothing at all. 

In the dream, it’s never Lydia holding him down. Once it was Heather, and another time it was Erica. More often than not, it’s his mother.

“Just relax, baby,” she says, and he does and he remembers the feeling of his heart as it stopped.

When he wakes up, he feels nothing so much as disappointment.

\- - -

He needs help, he knows that. He’s just dumb enough at first to think he’ll get it.

“Teach me,” Stiles says. “Teach me to be an emissary.”

Deaton’s normally impassive expression looks almost sad. “There was a time when I thought I could,” he says. “But that would be a mistake now.”

Stiles feels the words like a slap. “Why? Afraid I’m going to go all Dark Side on you, Obi-Wan?” The muscles in his back and shoulders tense. “Afraid you’ll have another darach to put down?”

“No, not that. Something worse.”

The light over the examination table flickers, then explodes.

“I believe it’s time for you to go, Mr. Stilinski.”

\- - -

Stiles leaves that night. Stiles comes back two days later. 

(Scott let slip that his boss was headed out of town for the long weekend. Like Stiles’ mom always said, you have to take your chances where you find them.)

The mountain ash in the front desk was designed to keep out werewolves and things that go bump in the night, not motivated humans; not even ones with a shadow around their hearts. He walks out with four books and a backpack of supplies.

He spends the Columbus Day break scanning pages into his computer and the books go back Tuesday morning on his way to school. The texts are mostly quick reads; very little archaic Latin this time. Following their instructions proves harder. The authors talk less about belief than about exerting your will. You can’t just trust things will do what you want; you have to make them want it, make it part of them. 

Stiles spends days getting nowhere. The amount of mountain ash stretches much further than it should, but he can’t make it move without touching it; the spark he expects to feel when he focuses on it never comes.

One night, he’s at it for hours with no results. By two in the morning, he slides past frustrated or angry into a place of cold focus. He grips his will like the sides of the metal tub and sinks _down_. He holds his breath. The ash drifts into circles and spirals on the desk. For the first time in what feels like weeks, he smiles.

\- - -

Stiles dreams of the white room. Tonight, he lies in the tub for a while, staring up at the ceiling until he hears someone laugh.

He bolts upright with a splash. Peter Hale is sitting on the stump of the nemeton; his bare feet are streaked with earth and his hands are slick with blood.

“Don’t stay in too long,” Peter chides and when Stiles looks down, the water is red and warm and not water at all.

He doesn’t scream himself awake, only because he can’t breathe.

\- - -

There are lots of places to go for a cup of coffee in Beacon Hills, but the most popular choice for locals is Lucy’s. Stiles has seen Peter end up there a few times, both because he likes Lucy’s himself and because he’s been keeping one eye on Peter since Derek left town. 

It’s early on a Saturday. Peter has a corner table, a mug of coffee and one of the cinnamon scones. Stiles walks over and pulls up a chair. “Whatever you’re up to with the dreams? It’s not going to work.”

“Dreams?” Peter stills, the rim of his mug resting against his lower lip. “Have you been dreaming about me, Stiles? I’m flattered.”

Stiles is quiet for a moment, then says, “You know, the lady who owns this place was friends with my mom.”

Peter gestures for him to continue, sipping his coffee.

“I know where she keeps the spare keys,” Stiles says. “It wouldn’t be that hard to add a little wolfsbane to the coffee filters.”

Peter sets his mug down, slowly and deliberately. “You’d poison all her customers just to get to me?”

“I’d do a lot of things to get to you.”

Peter smiles. “I believe you would.”

\- - -

Scott is trying to decide what to do about the Alpha twins and Stiles doesn’t care.

Sure, Ethan was helpful in the end, and sure, they’re both just kids in the grand scheme of things, but they both helped murder Boyd. They made their choices and now they get to live with them, just like everybody else. Who’s to say they wouldn’t go running back to Deucalion if that asshole snapped his fingers?

Stiles thinks it might be easier to get rid of them now and apologize to Danny and Lydia later. On the other hand, if he’s going to take people out based on past behavior and future threat, he should really start with Peter. And something’s holding him back.

(In last night’s dream, Peter and Stiles sat side by side on the stump. Dream logic never did run smooth, though; when Peter opened his mouth, it was the nemeton itself talking.

“I can hear them, you know,” it said. “They get so lonely. Do you ever get lonely, Genim?”

Stiles ignored the question. Instead, he asked, “Who do you hear?”

Not-Peter smiled. “The dead. They are in the ground with me, and there is no one else to talk to.”

“Listen,” said the nemeton, and there was a sound like wind over water, bells and a siren, all the graves of the world ripped open. Somewhere behind him, his mother asked, “What are you doing, sweetheart?”

Last night, Stiles woke up with tears on his face.)

“What do you think?” Scott asks.

Miles away, the nemeton’s roots twist through the earth. Stiles thinks that with very little effort, he could hear what it hears. He doesn’t try.

“I don’t know, man,” Stiles says, resting his head on his folded arms. “It’s your call.”

\- - -

Three weeks later, it’s Peter who sits down at Stiles’ table.

“You said you’d do anything to get to me. What about getting me to leave?”

Stiles glances up from his SAT flashcards. “You mean leave my table, or…?”

“This charming little town.” Peter makes a dismissive gesture that encompasses everything from the coffee shop to the city limits. “Care to help with that?”

“I’m listening.”

“I want my power back,” Peter says. “And while I could rip a share out of Scott, that comes will all kinds of unfortunate repercussions.”

“Like me killing you.”

Peter smiles. “Precisely.”

“Derek sacrificed his alpha power to save his sister; it’s gone, unless you want me to help you hunt down Cora--”

“You misunderstand me, Stiles. Derek’s noble sacrifice wasn’t an equal transaction. The power of the Hale alphas is older than Beacon HIlls; it can’t be gotten rid of that easily.” Peter leans in, eyes nearly flashing blue. “It’s here still, in the land itself. I want you to dig it up for me.”

"If I do this, you’ll leave Scott alone?”

“I won’t touch a hair on his head.”

Stiles waits to feel nervous, to feel conflicted, but all he has are plans of his own swiftly taking shape. “What exactly do you need me to do?”

\- - -

On the night of the winter solstice, they meet a few hundred yards from the ruin of the Hale house. 

Stiles spent the hours before sunset meditating in his room. He marked his pulse points with mud from the preserve to strengthen his connection to the land. Now he’s alone with Peter in a clearing and Stiles is only three-quarters sure he’ll walk away from this alive.

He kicks off his sneakers and sets his bare feet on the earth, sucking in a gasp that has nothing to do with the cold. He understands now what Peter meant about the power of the Hales. He can feel it running through the ground below him; not like the telluric currents but like a wolf itself, circling and wild and lonely. 

Peter holds out his arms and Stiles closes his hands around Peter’s wrists. Like a circuit being completed, the power races through him. His grip tightens until purple bruises bloom and fade on Peter’s skin. For a moment, he thinks he can feel his teeth sharpen and his mouth floods with the taste of copper. It’s gone just as quickly, leaving an aching gap like an empty socket.

Stiles stumbles back to land on his ass, his hands sliding through Peter’s as he goes.

“So?” Stiles pants. “How are you feeling?”

Slowly, slowly, Peter opens his eyes and they burn red.

“Great,” Stiles says. “Just great. Are we done?”

Peter laughs. “Stiles, why would we ever be _done_?”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Peter reaches for him, claws already sliding out; Stiles scrambles back, a stream of mountain ash slithering from his pocket to complete the line he laid hours ago. Peter slams hard against the barrier. He backs up, smirking, until he runs into another barrier near the far side of the clearing. He glances over his shoulder, then back at Stiles, a snarl creeping up his face.

“I left you a way out,” Stiles says. (His will is iron, but his body is only flesh and every nerve is trembling. Still, he can hold this for long enough.) “Straight out of Beacon Hills.”

Peter’s rage melts back into a manic grin. “Circled the whole _town_ to get to me?” He chuckles. “I am going to miss you.”

Stiles lifts a shaking hand to wipe away blood that drips from his nose. “Get going, Peter, or I’ll put your power right back in the fucking ground.”

“Perish the thought.” He lifts one clawed hand in a wave. “Goodbye, Stiles.”

And then he’s gone.

\- - -

In February, a trio of harpies lands in the preserve. They call Stiles “keryx” and he negotiates to let them hunt in the woods. They agree to steer clear of humans and let the werewolves have the place to themselves on full moons.

In March, Stiles kills a warlock. The guy--Stiles doesn’t know his name--is drawn by the power of the nemeton. He wants to take it for himself. Stiles spends three nights shaking through nightmares of Beacon Hills ripping apart into fissures and sinkholes before he goes out to the nemeton itself. The warlock is already there, waiting for him.

When he gets out of his Jeep, the guy smiles at him. He talks like he thinks Stiles is some kind of kindred spirit; he talks about doing this together. When he turns his back, Stiles takes the bat from its place beneath the driver’s seat and swings. He lets the harpies eat the body. He doesn’t tell Scott about any of it.

In April, he cultivates a garden on his windowsill; different varieties of wolfsbane sit side by side with a miniature holly, rosemary, rue, and oleander. He is wrist-deep in potting soil when his phone rings.

\- - -

“What the hell do you want?”

“Is this--” Stiles had been expecting Peter, but this voice is younger and nervous. Someone in the background is either laughing or screaming. “Is this Stilinski?”

“Who wants to know?” 

“Kevin, I’m Kevin, I’m Peter’s--look, he made me an offer--”

“Why are you calling me, Kevin?” Stiles keeps his voice just this side of angry, but he feels worry beginning in the pit of his stomach.

“He told me to. There were witches,” Kevin says, voice steadier, like he’s reciting from memory. “They took Peter. Their friend went to Beacon Hills last month to get something, something about a tree--”

_The warlock turns away. Stiles swings and swings and swings._

Kevin’s voice is speeding up, the panic setting back in. “--and he never came home. I guess they wanted to interrogate Peter, but now they’re dead and I think he’s dying, I--”

Stiles can’t exert his power on someone over this distance, but he’s pretty sure he reaches into a similar place when he barks, “ _Tell me what you see_.”

“Purple,” Kevin blurts. “His veins are fucking _purple_ , not black, and he’s--” 

Another laughing shriek cuts him off. There’s a fumbling sound as the phone changes hands, then a sucking gasp and a voice. “Stiiiiiiiles, sweet boy, you ran me out of town. Don’t think I’ve forgiven you.”

Peter is lucid enough to recognize his voice; Stiles scratches three varieties of wolfsbane off his mental list.

“Peter--”

“Dirty hands,” Peter hisses. “Wipe them off on everyone around you, but it comes home.” The speaker nearly cuts out with the force of his roar. “ _It will always come home._ ”

After that comes only silence.

“Peter.” Nothing. “Peter, say something!”

When Peter finally responds, he sounds exhausted. “I should have killed you. I should have killed you all.”

Stiles presses the phone to his ear until it hurts, listening for the sound of breathing. What he gets is Kevin’s voice.

“You still there?”

“Is he dead?” Stiles asks.

“No, but he’s not...I don’t think he’s doing so good.”

At this point there’s only one of Stiles’ plants that could fit the bill, a wolfsbane variant that was crossbred with foxglove. He’ll leave a small cutting of the plant behind and take the rest with him. Either this will work or Peter’s a dead man again. He feels like he needs to see it through regardless.

“Start driving,” Stiles says. “We’ll meet in the middle.”

\- - -

Stiles has been pacing beside his Jeep for ten minutes when the black SUV screeches to a halt in the rest stop parking lot. The driver opens the door but doesn’t quite get out, standing instead on the running board with his arms braced on the door and the roof. He’s in his twenties, Stiles thinks, tall and a little rangy but broad through the chest and shoulders. His reddish-brown hair looks like he’s been running his hands through it. “You Stilinski?”

“You Kevin?”

That seems to be enough of an answer for Kevin, who hops down and walks around to the back of the car. Stiles follows him. “I had to put him in here,” Kevin says, his hand on the latch. “I think he’s still alive.”

When he raises the trunk, Stiles is hit by the smell of stale sweat and illness. The rear row of seats is folded flat and Peter sprawls through the space, seemingly unconscious. The veins in his arms and throat pulse dark violet. Stiles sets the pot of wolfsbane inside next to Peter before climbing in after it, shoulders hunched. He has to crouch over Peter in order to fit, straddling the man’s hips but keeping his weight up off of Peter’s body.

He is reaching for the plant when Peter flinches, jerking awake with a snarl. His claws sink reflexively into Stiles’ thighs. He’s disoriented and weak, so it’s not as bad as it could have been but the blood still flows. Stiles grits his teeth.

Peter blinks hard. His eyes are watering and the tears have a lavender cast in the dim trunk light. “Stiles.”

“Good to see you, too.”

Stiles snaps the blooms off the plant, twisting them into a miniature bouquet. He pulls a lighter from his pocket and sets the flame to the tips of the flowers. “Here,” he says, bringing the burning flowers down to Peter’s mouth. “Breathe.”

Peter inhales, the tension bleeding from him with every draw of smoke. When he goes to draw his next breath, it hitches; he twists roughly onto his side, his legs knocking into Stiles’. Stiles sits down hard on the floor of the trunk while Peter coughs black and purple bile.

“Thank you.” Peter lifts his head, stretches out a hand to touch Stiles’ knee. The sting of the scratches fades to nothing.

“You should hang onto the rest of that.” Stiles jerks his chin at the remains of the wolfsbane plant. “If the symptoms aren’t totally gone in the next hour, burn a little more.” He pulls his legs closer to his chest, untangling them from Peter’s. “You gonna tell me about your boyfriend?”

Peter manages a chuckle that ends in him spitting out over the tailgate. “An omega looking for a pack. Saves me the trouble of having to bite anyone.”

“Glad to see you learned your lesson about biting high schoolers.”

Peter smirks, spits again. Stiles asks, “Why did they take you?”

“Some people still remember the Hale name, it seems. When their little friend never came back, they assumed I would know something since Beacon Hills is ‘my’ town.” Peter scrubs the back of a hand across his mouth. “What is it about that tree that makes you so protective?”

Even from here, miles out of town, Stiles can feel it. It can sense Peter through his magic; dead and not dead and still alive. If Stiles didn’t know better, he would think it was curious. “I need to get going,” he says, scrambling over Peter and out of the car.

“He should be fine now,” Stiles tells Kevin as he bolts for his Jeep. “Tell him to stay away from witches.”

“Thanks,” Kevin says, sounding a little dazed at the haste of Stiles’ exit. “But tell me one thing. How do you know Peter?”

“I helped kill him one time,” Stiles says. “It’s complicated.”

\- - -

Senior year is quiet. The alpha twins move on; not back to Deucalion, as far as Stiles can tell. Lydia locks down valedictorian, with Stiles three-tenths of a point behind. Derek comes back to Beacon Hills in time to watch them walk, sitting awkwardly in the stands beside Scott’s mom.

(Throughout it all, Stiles keeps talking to to Peter. Text messages and voicemails drift between them, conversations held in piecemeal. Stiles complains that none of his best moments of personal growth would be believable in his college essays. Peter tells him to edit judiciously, mentions off hand that Kevin left and he is still an alpha without a pack. Peter never asks about what’s going on back in Beacon Hills and Stiles never offers the information.)

Three weeks after graduation, the manticore shows up. 

Isaac is the one who finds her. He runs all the way to the doorstep of Derek’s loft with the news before he collapses. Derek calls Scott, who calls Stiles. 

When Scott and Stiles arrive at the loft, Isaac tells them what he saw. He came over a hill in the heart of the preserve and there was a creature crouched at the bottom. It had the body of a lion, wings like a bat, and the face of a woman. Its tail, swaying hypnotically, was tipped with long spines like a porcupine’s quills.

Several of those spines were stuck in the body of the harpy that lay prone and half-eaten at the manticore’s feet. The manticore lifted its head and hissed at Isaac, flashing row behind row of serrated teeth. It swung its tail, crouched low over its kill, and Isaac bolted.

By the end of his story, he’s starting to sweat.

“Aren’t you guys cold?” he asks.

That’s when they spot one of the manticore’s spines, buried low in his side.

They move Isaac into the spare bedroom. Stiles manages to get the barb out with a pocket knife and pair of tweezers, then Derek and Scott take turns drawing off Isaac’s pain until he falls asleep. Before they close, his eyes are glassy and feverish. They retreat to the living room to decide what to do next.

Scott wants to reach out to Allison and the Argent family resources for information; Derek wants to talk to Deaton. Stiles sits quietly, turning the manticore’s barb carefully between his fingers. He thinks about how little they know, and how few they are. He scrolls through his phone’s address book and presses “send.”

On the fifth ring, Peter answers. “Hello.”

“Hey.”

Derek and Scott fall silent.

“Stiles. How are you?”

“Not great. There’s a manticore in the Preserve.”

Peter hisses between his teeth. “Quite a problem. If you’re calling for advice, I don’t have much to offer other than get out of its way.”

“I don’t need advice, I need muscle. How fast can you be here?”

Scott looks torn between outrage and pure shock. “Stiles--”

Stiles holds up a hand; the strings on the window blinds swing in a non-existent breeze.

“Four hours, give or take,” Peter says. “I assume things aren’t so dire you can’t wait that long.”

“That’s fine, just don’t move any slower.”

“See you in four hours, then.”

“What the hell, Stiles?” Scott asks.

Derek’s suspicions, as always, run deeper. “How long have you been in contact with him?”

“Off and on since I ran him out of town,” Stiles says, and every word rings true. “You think I wanted him out there _not_ knowing what kind of shit he was up to?”

Derek’s jaw is clenched, but Stiles can tell he concedes the point. “I’m going home to grab some supplies,” Stiles adds. “Maybe pick Lydia’s brain, if I can reach her. Call me if he gets worse.”

\- - -

Lydia headed for the east coast the week after graduation, to a program for future Fields Medal contenders. Thankfully she’s not in a seminar when Stiles calls and they set up an emergency Skype session. He sends her pages from his scanned library and they translate on the fly. Other than a description that matches Isaac’s, none of the texts offers any additional information about a manticore. They switch gears briefly, brainstorming things that might help with Isaac’s symptoms, before she has to leave for her discussion section. Lydia wishes them all luck; Stiles blows her a kiss and grabs his keys.

He’s on his way up the stairs to Derek’s loft, a bag of herbs and books slung over his shoulder, when he sees Peter on the landing above him. 

“Glad you could make it,” Stiles says.

“My pleasure,” Peter replies. He waits as Stiles climbs the remaining steps between them. It’s the closest they’ve been since the night over a year ago. There’s no smell of sickness now, just a crisp scent that’s probably soap. Beneath that, Stiles thinks that he can smell freshly turned earth. He doesn’t realize he’s leaning in until Peter steps back.

Peter smiles faintly, like he solved a puzzle. “It’s good to see you too,” he murmurs, then heads for Derek’s door.

Stiles enters the loft on Peter’s heels, whose arrival going about as well as he expected. Derek’s expression is blank, but furiously so. Scott clenches his jaw, eyes flaring red. 

“There’s no need for that,” Peter says, letting his own eyes shift. Derek takes a step back, growling at a pitch so low he might not even be aware of it. 

“What. The fuck,” Scott says.

“You never told them?” Peter turns to look at Stiles, smiling slowly. “I--”

“Peter, shut _up_.” The air feels suddenly thick, heavy with ozone. Isaac’s whine, disoriented and fearful, drifts in from the next room. Stiles lets out a heavy sigh and the pressure dissipates.

“Perhaps I should come back later,” Peter murmurs. “I need to check on my apartment; there might be something there we can use.”

There’s a moment right after the door shuts behind Peter when Stiles thinks he’ll be able to get through the night without having this discussion.

Scott says, “Stiles, we have to talk about this.”

The moment passes.

“What do you want to talk about, Scott? About everything I’ve done to protect you and your pack? To protect my _family_ and this town? You never were all that interested in my methods before, not even when Deaton started flinching every time I came into a room.”

Scott’s mouth hangs slightly open, like he’s trying to protest, or to remember just how long it’s been since Stiles went with him to Deaton’s office. (At first, the man’s wariness was a sick sort of ego boost, but soon it left only a bad taste in his mouth. Stiles has been steering clear of him for months.)

Stiles sighs, shoulders slumping. “I love you, Scott, and you will always be my brother, but you don’t get to come to me now and pass judgement on how I keep you safe.”

He retreats to the back bedroom before Scott can reply, turning his focus to Isaac. The place where the barb sunk in is hot to the touch now; Isaac shies away when Stiles palpates it. He mixes herbs to reduce the inflammation, to encourage the poison to drain. It’s hard to tell how much of an effect he’s having, but Isaac seems to be resting easier.

By the time Scott knocks on the doorframe, Stiles feels calmer, if still not quite prepared.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Stiles says, glancing at Scott out of the corner of his eye.

“How’s he doing?”

“I think I helped with the symptoms.” Stiles scrubs a hand through his hair. “We’ve probably got a day or two at most before we need a permanent fix.”

Scott sits down on the edge of the bed. He touches the back of Isaac’s hand lightly; his veins bloom black and Issac sighs, slipping deeper into sleep. “Can we talk about earlier?” Scott asks.

Stiles worries his lower lip between his teeth, nodding hesitantly. 

“I don’t care about your methods, Stiles. Maybe that’s the wrong thing to say, but…” Scott shrugs. “I don’t care, because I trust that you’re going to do the right thing. I trust _you_ ; always have. I just want you to trust me enough to talk about things.”

“I can do that. I can try to do that,” he amends. 

“Okay,” Scott says.

Stiles looks up. “So we’re cool?”

Scott kicks out at Stiles’ foot, grinning. “Of course we’re cool. Now come help me kick this thing’s ass.”

\- - -

Peter’s files turn up a recipe for an antidote to the manticore’s poison, but the manticore’s tail itself is a key ingredient. One of the Argent bestiaries talks about a spear designed for manticore hunting, but there’s no details for how to find or make one. The longer they delay, the worse Isaac gets and the better the chances that the manticore will get spotted by some innocent civilian and then there will be no containing it.

The plan they run with is for Derek to lure the manticore to a clearing of their choosing. Stiles will use mountain ash to seal it in, then Allison will take out its wings with arrows Stiles has treated with mistletoe for the occasion. With it trapped and wounded, the three wolves will be able to take it down. It’s a good plan. There’s no reason it shouldn’t work.

So naturally it turns into a clusterfuck almost immediately.

Derek comes charging into the clearing just after Allison gets settled in a tree overlooking their killbox. She nocks an arrow and Stiles opens his pouch of mountain ash. He’s left plenty of room for the manticore to get inside before he seals the trap. He is ready. They are all ready.

What they didn’t count on was the manticore circling the clearing entirely to cut Derek off. She swoops over the unfinished barrier line behind them, landing in the middle with a scream like a war cry. What should have been an easy dash behind the manticore while the werewolves kept her attention is now a charge straight toward her mouth and its rows of shark teeth. Stiles scrambles to close the gap; the manticore pivots and looks straight at him.

The side of her tail catches Stiles squarely in the gut, flinging him into the nearest tree. His head cracks against the trunk.

He misses the next few minutes of the fight.

When he opens his eyes again, Scott left arm hangs limply from his shoulder, gouged with deep claw marks that are slow to heal. Allison has studded the manticore’s wings with arrows, rendering them useless, but it exhausted her supply. She’s still up in the tree, studying the situation like she’ll leap down the second she sees a safe place to land. 

Peter and Derek are circling the manticore from opposite sides, trying to keep it off balance. Peter is the first to notice that Stiles is awake. “Stiles, we--”

The manticore flicks its tail. A line of quills sprouts along Peter’s torso--four spines angling in a row from shoulder to hip. He pulls one free even as he collapses, black ichor draining from the wound.

Stiles drags his legs under himself.

Derek roars. The manticore laughs, the sound low and rolling. She looks at Peter’s body, convulsing at her feet, and licks her lips. Derek rushes her. She kicks him away, splitting his chest with her claws.

Stiles gets to his feet. He sways, takes a step to anchor himself, digging his sneaker into the loose soil. The manticore’s head turns toward him.

There have been so many deaths in Beacon Hills, so many sacrifices. Maybe they weren’t all scholars or virgins or healers, maybe they were just ordinary people, but their deaths meant something all the same. They carried power and that’s what Stiles reaches for now.

( _Listen_ , says the nemeton, and Stiles listens.)

The feeling when it hits is like climbing into the ice bath again. Stiles presses one hand to his chest to check if his heart is still beating. 

Scott calls his name.

Stiles stretches his other hand out to where the mountain ash lies spilled on the ground. A roar climbs out of his throat like a living thing, but he can’t hear it over the rising wind. The air is laden with ash in the space of a breath; it catches the manticore full across the face, peeling a bloody layer from her cheek. She screams and lunges at Stiles, but the wind forces her back. She digs her claws into the earth for balance, swinging her tail. The barbs twist in the wind and land harmlessly in the dirt. The next sharp gust severs her tail entirely, tossing it clear of the struggle. The manticore shrieks, turning in circles as she finds herself at the heart of a miniature whirlwind. 

The end is difficult to see, but Stiles sees enough. He sees the manticore’s face--half of it abraded clear down to the bone--full of rage and fear right until she has no face left at all. Stiles smiles until his lips split.

Everyone living and dead is calling his name. 

Before he blacks out, he hears his mother say, “You did good, baby. Just rest now.”

\- - -

He has a blurry memory of being in Deaton’s office.

“I can’t help him.”

Two roars, two alphas. “ _Please_ \--” Scott says, but louder still, over him comes the other voice. 

“You _will_ help him.” Peter, pale and drawn, the wounds on his chest barely closed.

“This isn’t my choice, Mr. Hale. Either Stiles will survive this or not, but that power lies with him.”

Between one blink and the next, the walls are blinding white and everyone is gone. He can smell freshly turned earth. Stiles hears the rattle of his breath when he inhales. Deaton’s office returns in a rush. 

People are shouting again, but he can’t understand what they’re saying. Someone takes his hand. 

All the lights go out.

\- - -

In the white room, the stump is gone. 

The sacred tree stands tall, limbs spreading toward a ceiling infinitely high. The bark is darker than before, close to black, and the branches all are bare. It’s the most beautiful thing Stiles has ever seen.

In the white room, Stiles is lying in his grave.

There’s no coffin, just a shallow hole in the ring of earth at the tree’s base, as yet uncovered. His head is near the trunk, so he can stare straight up through the branches.

Slowly, he climbs out. The branches form a ladder that invites him higher, so he keeps going, all the way up into the most slender limbs at the crown of the tree. When he looks down at last, what’s below him isn’t the white room but all of Beacon Hills.

The town beats like a pulse. His pulse. He opens his eyes.

\- - -

The last of the day’s sunlight spills in through the window, warming Stiles where he lies curled in the center of his bed. Peter is sitting beside him.

“Is everyone okay?” Stiles asks.

“Scott took the antidote back to Isaac, who I hear is doing well. Derek and Allison are on manticore corpse detail. I brought you home.” Peter glances at the bedroom door, standing more open than shut. “As far as your father is concerned, you only overexerted yourself with your magic. We thought it might be best to let you tell him the whole story.”

Stiles grimaces and starts to hide his face back against the comforter. Peter takes his hand. Stiles looks up.

“You are not allowed to die,” Peter murmurs, his voice low and threatening and strained. “Do you understand? Certainly not from your own stupidity while trying to be a hero. Leave that to your little friends but you stay _alive_.”

“Are you saying you’d miss me?”

Peter ignores the question; instead, he presses his face to the inside of Stiles’ wrist and breathes open-mouthed against his pulse.

“I should go.” His lips drag against Stiles’ skin with each word. “Take care of yourself, won’t you?” 

Before Stiles can respond, Peter leaves.

Stiles can hear a murmur of voices downstairs, Peter saying goodbye to his father. A moment later, his father calls from the bottom of the stairs, “How are you doing up there, kiddo?”

He can feel the echo of Peter in the room. He can feel him as he drives away, his own power spreading out through the earth like roots.

“I’m okay,” Stiles calls. “I’m good.”

\- - -

Stiles knocks on Peter’s door.

(He had dinner with his father, promising to give him the whole manticore story tomorrow. He waited an hour into his father’s shift, then left the house.)

Peter smiles, bemused. “How did you get here?”

“You’re in the phone book,” Stiles says, stepping inside.

(Peter is impossible to miss now, a huge glowing anomaly in Beacon HIlls where everyone else is only alive or dead. The drive to his apartment was as easy as reading a map.)

There’s a duffle bag on the floor beside the couch. A backpack sits open on the kitchen table with a stack of papers and books beside it.

“You’re leaving already?”

Peter leans back against the edge of the couch. “Can you think of a reason I should be staying?”

Stiles takes a step toward him. 

“Well, Stiles? Can you?”

\- - -

Stiles expects it to be frantic, for them to never make it out of the living room, but Peter is slow and deliberate about everything. He is careful with his kisses, careful when he leads Stiles back to the bedroom.

Peter sheds his own clothes, quick and perfunctory, before turning his attention to Stiles. He kneels to remove his pants and nip at his thigh; he pauses on his way back up, inhaling over Stiles’ heart.

“You have a kink for my pulse or what?” Stiles wonders, resting one hand lightly on Peter’s hair.

Peter tips his head back. “I heard it stop in Deaton’s office. You’ll forgive me if I feel compelled to keep checking.”

Stiles opens his mouth--to protest or argue or scream--but Peter stands the rest of the way up, laying a finger against Stiles’ lips. 

“You were gone for a moment and you’re here now. What part of that would you like to focus on?”

(Stiles thinks about the grave in the white room, _his_ grave. He’s been dead twice now; how many times can it happen before it sticks?)

Peter’s breath is warm against his cheek. Stiles grabs Peter by the shoulders and pulls them both onto the bed.

The kisses are rougher now, fiercer. Peter shifts Stiles beneath him; his hand curls hot around Stiles’ cock while he ruts in long, slow rolls of his hips against Stiles’ thigh. Stiles whimpers and curses and fucking _begs_ , his nails scratching pink lines over Peter’s biceps and shoulders.

“I have you,” Peter whispers into the side of Stiles’ throat. “I have you.”

\- - -

When he wakes up, the sky is just starting to get light and Peter is plastered against his back, mouthing idly at the nape of Stiles’ neck.

“I was thinking you’d be gone by now,” Stiles muses.

Peter hums. “Last night you wanted me to stay. Have you changed your mind?”

“You can’t stay here.”

Stiles can feel Peter’s grin. “The lease is still in my name.”

“ _Peter_.”

“I know what you meant--” Peter drags his teeth over the corner of Stiles’ jaw. “--and I would beg to differ, but that would place Scott and myself at cross-purposes. And I know who you would choose.”

Stiles doesn’t bother saying he’s sorry, because he isn’t. “Then don’t make me choose.”

Peter makes a sound that might be agreement. “So long as you don’t do this with Scott.”

Stiles twists in Peter’s hold but Peter rolls them both, putting Stiles on top. One hand slides over Stiles’ hip, slips between his thighs. His fingers stroke and press in teasing circles. “Do you want me to leave _now_?”

Stiles’ breath hitches as he shakes his head. “Stay.” 

Before Peter can demanded it, he adds, “Please stay.”

Peter closes his eyes; Stiles catches just a glimpse of red as they shut. “Of course,” Peter whispers. “I promise.”

\- - -

When Stiles wakes up the second time, he is alone in the apartment and Peter’s luggage is gone.

The only thing left behind is a brochure for luxury apartments on the kitchen table . Stiles recognizes the building from his campus tour of UCLA. He flips it open. Scrawled inside over a photograph of the pool are the words _See you in the fall._

Underneath the brochure is a set of keys.

Stiles’ phone rings, Scott’s name bright in the caller ID. Stiles answers with one hand, tosses and catches the keys with the other. 

“Hey, buddy, what’s up?”

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the poem [Not Waiving but Drowning](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/poem/175778) by Stevie Smith.


End file.
